Good Time(63)

“So.” He blows out a breath and changes lanes, speeding past a slow-moving sedan. “Now you know. I don’t do all that stuff because I’m a good person. I do it because I’m fucked up.”

“You’re the least-fucked up strip club owner I’ve ever known.”

“You only think that because you love me.” He reaches over to squeeze my leg and I think it’s all going to be okay. I think whatever happens, we’re going to be okay.

We’re still headed towards Red Rock and I’m sure that’s where we’re going until Vince turns, the car slowing to a stop in front of a large iron gate. Vince hits a button on his visor and a moment later it swings open and we proceed through into what appears to be a remote gated home community. Acreage lots and an excess of trees. It’s very lush, so a lot of care to plant things that will thrive in this climate was taken. Manicured lawns surrounded by desert-friendly gravel and rock to break up the landscape. It takes another two minutes of winding through this development before Vince pulls off the road onto a gravel drive leading to… nowhere. There’s nothing here, just a huge vacant lot. Several acres appear to separate the closest neighbors, but I can see the dull glow of lights on either side. Straight ahead is nothing but a direct view of Red Rock and… a tent?

Vince turns off the engine and circles the hood of the car to open my door. It’s almost chilly, for Nevada, the weather having dipped down to the fifties with the setting of the sun. Vince puts his arm around me and walks me in the direction of the tent, making sure I don’t trip in my heels.

It’s way more than a tent though. It’s a full-fledged glamping setup. The tent flap is zipped back to reveal a freaking full-sized bed inside and I’m guessing that’s a real mattress, not a blow-up. A chandelier is hanging from the branch of a tree covered in fairy lights. A fire pit has been created out of the perfect selection of rocks with a fire already crackling inside. Before the fire pit are two chairs, with something resembling a small tree stump set between, but it’s too perfect to be real so I’m sure it came from a home design store. On top of the stump are all of the necessary bits to make s’mores. A stack of graham crackers, chocolate bars and marshmallows rest inside of a glass-domed cake stand, with two perfect sticks for roasting marshmallows resting beside the cake stand.

I walk closer and that’s when I notice one end of one of the sticks has been painted in pink sparkly nail polish.

Just like the one I had as a kid but never got to use. He’s recreated the camp trip I missed. Well, a way better recreation. Better because he’s here and better because this is more glamping than camping, which is perfect because it was really only the s’mores and the badge I was interested in. I’m going to have to ask him who he hired to pull this off because I’m impressed. This wasn’t something he did himself, this required a team of people and a forklift of some kind to hang all those lights. And a generator, Jesus.

“You remembered,” I say, picking up the stick and running it between my fingers.

“I remember everything you tell me,” he responds. His hands are in his pockets and he’s watching me very carefully as I turn the stick over in my hands.

“Where are we? What is this place?”

“I own this lot,” he says. “I’ve owned it for damn close to a decade.”

“But it’s empty.” I shift my eyes around even though I know a home isn’t about to suddenly appear before me. And this is residential. It’s not like he’s been keeping this lot for dirt biking or whatever people would keep land for.

“I was going to build on it. Real estate is a great investment, so I thought I’d build a home.”

“Why didn’t you? Ten years is a long time to wait for permits.”

He smiles at my joke, a small tug of his lips that makes me smile in return. Then his expression turns serious. “Because I was waiting for you.”

Oh, God. Oh, God! The way he looks at me when he says that, holy hell. The swans in my stomach just threw up because I think my husband might be about to propose to me.

“I hired an architect. Had plans drawn up, the whole bit. I drove out here one day after they’d staked off an outline of the house, to make sure the windows were going to line up with the view in the way I wanted. That the kitchen would open up in the exact right spot to the backyard. That kind of shit.”

“So what happened?”

“This little girl came over.” He laughs when he says it, glancing around at the empty lot. “A Girl Trooper, with a wagon full of cookies. She left the wagon in the street with her mom as she ran up that shitty gravel drive to my nonexistent house asking if I wanted to buy cookies.” He smiles again, shaking his head at the memory. “And I thought to myself, ‘Vince, what in the hell are you doing? You’re building a family house without a family. You’re building a house your future wife might not like. She should be a part of designing the house, building it.’ So I scrapped the project, but I kept the lot.”

“After you bought every box of cookies that kid had.”

“God, the entire fucking wagon full.” He smiles, remembering. “I want you to be the wife I build a house with. Right here, if you don’t hate this property.”

“I don’t hate it,” I whisper, shaking my head back and forth to reiterate my thoughts on this location.